I finally figured out why the bakery on Elm Street has such good bread

Been going to The Flour Box for months and always wondered how they get that crispy crust. I asked the owner last week and she told me they use a steam injection oven set to 480 degrees. Never would have guessed that little detail made such a big difference. Anyone else ever asked a local place for their secret and got a straight answer?

3 comments

3 Comments

jana_scott13d ago

480 degrees sounds like the real hero in this story.

lopez.jana13d ago

Honestly never thought about it that way but @jana_scott might be onto something. 480 degrees is pretty specific for baking bread, I guess people who do sourdough swear by it because it gets that crust right without burning the bottom. Most ovens top out at 500 so 480 is like the sweet spot where the inside actually cooks through before the outside turns into charcoal. I tried it once with a cheap loaf and it did come out better than my usual 350 method. Maybe the real magic is just knowing your oven's hot spots and working around them.

-1

hunt.nora13d ago

I've got a 1980s oven that thinks 480 is a suggestion, not a rule. The thing heats up to 475 and then decides it's done and drops to 420 like it's testing me. I put a thermometer in there once and found the back right corner runs 50 degrees hotter than the front left. So 480 might be great if you've got a fancy oven that actually holds temp, but for the rest of us it's just a number to aim at while we rotate pans every 8 minutes. Honestly, I'm convinced half the bread baking tricks are just ways to deal with bad ovens.